The Rolling Stones played the Ricky Tick Club tonight in 1963, a small place in an upstairs room of the Star and Garter Pub in Windsor England, near Eton College west of London. As often happens in college towns, “The Tick” became one of the more influential places to play in England in the 60’s for R&B bands, and the Stones felt they had arrived. The club helped introduce the American music they loved when The Supremes, The Temptations, and Stevie Wonder had all played there, and British acts that followed included The Who, The Yardbirds, The Pretty Things, Pink Floyd, Cream, and The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Jimmy Page played live with The Yardbirds for the first time tonight in 1966 at the Marquee Club in London.

The Beatles recorded one of their more psychedelic numbers at Abbey Road today in 1966 from start to finish. She Said, She Saidhad come to John Lennon after a party at the Hollywood Hills house Brian Epstein had rented for them on tour the previous year. With all the attention they were getting police had blocked off roads in the neighborhood, and they’d felt like prisoners. One of the guests was the not-yet-famous son of actor Henry Fonda, Peter, who told Rolling Stone magazine, “I finally made my way past the kids and the guards. Paul and George were on the back patio, and the helicopters were patrolling overhead. They were sitting at a table under an umbrella in a rather comical attempt at privacy. Soon afterwards we dropped acid and began tripping for what would prove to be all night and most of the next day; all of us, including the original Byrds, eventually ended up inside a huge, empty, sunken tub in the bathroom, babbling our minds away.” What Peter had been babbling about was a childhood near-death experience when he’d accidentally shot himself. John said later, “”We didn’t want to hear about that! We were on an acid trip and the sun was shining and the girls were dancing…some from Playboy, I believe…and the whole thing was really beautiful and Sixties. And this guy – who I really didn’t know, he hadn’t made Easy Rider or anything – kept coming over, wearing shades, saying ‘I know what it’s like to be dead,’ and we kept leaving him because he was so boring. It was scary, when you’re flying high: ‘Don’t tell me about it. I don’t want to know what it’s like to be dead! You’re making me feel like I’ve never been born!” George added, “He was showing us his bullet wound. He was very uncool.”

Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore quit today in 1975 to start a new band with the singer, Ronnie James Dio, and several other members of Elf. They called it Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, later shortened to just Rainbow.

The Velvet Underground’s first drummer Angus MacLise died of tuberculosis today in 1979 at age 34. He’d quit the band in protest in 1965 when they’d agreed to accept $75 for playing a show. Angus was in it for art, and thought taking money for a gig was selling out. He was replaced by Mo Tucker. While songwriters Lou Reed and John Cale would go on to successful solo careers, the Velvet Underground were no where near as popular in their day as they are now. Brian Eno once said of the Andy Warhol managed band, “While the first Velvets record may have sold only 30,000 copies, everyone who bought one of those 30,000 started a band.”

Karen McNeil, a 39 year old Los Angeles woman who claimed she was the wife of Guns-N-Roses singer Axl Rose and communicated with him telepathically, was sentenced to one year in prison for stalking him today in 2000.

Some serious Classic Rock coattail riding tonight in 2011 when Maroon 5 performed their song Moves Like Jaggerfor the first time on the TV show The Voice, on which both the band’s singer Adam Levine and pop singer Christina Aguilera serve as “coaches”. Aguilera also sang on the recording, and appeared in the video, which uses film clips of The Rolling Stones singer.

Rock and Roll Birthdays

The Kinks rhythm guitarist, singer, and songwriter Ray Davies is 69.

Miguel Danus, bass player for the first band from Spain to have a top hit in the U.S. and the U.K. with Black is Black, Los Bravos, is 69.